You are water, more than 70% of you. To stay alive, you need to replenish the water your body uses everyday.

To begin a conversation between children and water, I presented my Water-Write-Workshop to teachers and parents at The Leonardo Museum, Salt Lake City. The workshop was held right in the middle of the museum’s amazing, inspiring water exhibit. We were surrounded with images, sounds, and words about water.

After the teacher’s workshop, children piled in to begin making rain sticks, another way for water to talk with water. We shared ideas about rain—where does it come from, where does it go, and what are the many ways we we play in puddles, ponds, and rivers?

Meanwhile, glitter and glue rained down! Beautiful rain sticks were made using cardboard mailing tubes, multi-colored duct tape, ribbons, and sparkles. We listened to the sound of rain as rice tumbled inside the rain stick from top to bottom. And then—surprise—water talked back! Thunder rumbled, hailstones skipped across sidewalks as rain drummed its water song on the museum’s roof overhead.